Pnut, one of crypto’s hottest memecoins, was inspired by the internet sensation Peanut, a pet squirrel who was euthanized by New York officials.
Peanut’s social media account owner, Mark Longo, posted that New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation has seized and euthanized his beloved squirrel. This happened because there were complaints about Peanut being kept in unsafe housing.
The post by Longo said;
“Well internet, you WON. You took one of the most amazing animals away from me because of your selfishness. To the group of people who called DEC, there’s a special place in hell for you.”
Somehow, the decision to euthanize Peanut has sparked a lot of debate concerning the elections on social media. Some people see it as an overreach by the government. The other side of the argument says it is a necessary public health intervention.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk, a vocal Trump supporter, said, “Government overreach kidnapped an orphan squirrel and executed him.” Donald Trump Jr, the former president’s son also got in on the action, referring to Peanut as the Elon Musk of squirrels. He went on to say that the Democrats killed the rodent.
The X account linked to the Pnut memecoin also seems to be getting involved in the politics. The profile has been seen supporting and retweeting conservative rhetoric.
Pnut’s success makes it the latest, but certainly not the unlikeliest crypto token to hit the sweet spot between financial speculation and humor, internet culture, and a sense of community.
Pnut’s run in the meme supercycle
Pnut has had one of the most impressive memecoin runs in this cycle, hitting a market capitalization of over $120 million and over $307 million in trade volume.
Many meme coin traders have profited from Pnut’s meteoric rise. On-chain tools show that a trader has netted about $1.77 million from trading Pnut in just two days.
However, just like in every market, there are winners and losers. Not everyone who bought Pnut has amassed millions of dollars.
One trader who bought about 19 million Pnut tokens for $1882 liquidated their position at a loss, selling the tokens for $1099 when they thought the trade wasn’t going well. In a twist, the tokens the trader sold are now worth about $1.6 million, a classic case of “selling too early.”
In typical memecoin fashion, Pnut’s success has spawned several copycats trying to ride the wave. A quick search on the DeFi data tracker, Dexscreener shows multiple peanut-themed meme tokens.
At the time of writing, one of the copycats ranks number 2 on Dexscreener.
Pnut’s story is just another example of the hype and low barrier to entry into the memecoin market. Traders remain eternally drawn to the possibility of overnight wealth while they ignore the risk of losing it all to the volatile asset class of memecoins.
Memecoins continue to defy logic
Memecoins are an extremely volatile class of cryptocurrencies based on memes, animals, inside jokes, or humorous topics. The concept started with Dogecoin, which was created as a Bitcoin parody in 2013 and popularized by Elon Musk.
Since then, meme tokens have relied on having strong fanbases, virality, or celebrity endorsements to swing massive price movements.
The meme coin market has a capitalization of about $54 billion, which is dominated by projects like Shiba Inu, Dogecoin, Pepe, and dogwifhat.
While BTC and other “strong” altcoins endured bad weekends, a random memecoin is having the time of its life.
Unlike traditional cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH, memecoins typically lack strong fundamentals. They also have a low barrier of entry, which when combined with volatility, attracts investors looking for quick gains.
FOMO (fear of missing out) also often leads meme traders to lose fortunes to coordinated pump-and-dump schemes where the hype drives prices up before a massive sell-off.
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